


as endless as the oceans, as timeless as the tides

by cl410



Series: Legacy [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Teen Wolf (TV), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Hunters, Magic, Original Character Death(s), POV Original Character, Sparks, Supernatural - Freeform, Trans Character, fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 14:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15511935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cl410/pseuds/cl410
Summary: Naomi had always believed in fate.





	as endless as the oceans, as timeless as the tides

**Author's Note:**

> Naomi's backstory, which really got away from me.

Naomi had always believed in fate.

When she was younger, more naive, she even took comfort in the concept. Things would turn out the way fate destined, regardless of human intervention. No matter what happened, the world would keep on turning the way it was supposed to.

Good and bad, love and hate, rising and falling like the tides. An endless tug-of-war, one triumphing over the other until the tides changed once again. She used to appreciate the delicate balance, admire the forces of the universe at work. Now it just scared her, how quickly fate could turn against you.  

Fate washed Alec up on the shore the day they met, the half-Fae shifter stunned into awed silence upon seeing her.  

Fate showed them the small, hidden paradise on the coast of Oregon, where they built a home and a life for themselves.  

Fate gave her love and life and everything she'd never thought to ask for.

And then fate ripped it all away from her.

~*~

Her magic manifested fairly soon after Naomi started transitioning.

Naomi's spark was an ocean in itself, soothing and raging and boundless in its power. Control was a hard-fought battle, made doubly so by the trials of middle school. Naomi's power took everyone by surprise; her parents did their best to comprehend the concept of her raw magic, the scientists in them struggling to accept the general lack of answers regarding their daughter's spark.   

So they took Naomi across the world with them, searching for answers for their daughter. Naomi had more teachers and mentors than she ever wanted; she learned in leaps and bounds, chased currents across the oceans, explored forests and mountains and beaches on every continent.

It was on one of these beaches that she stumbled across the love of her life. Naomi had watched, then a cautious woman of 23, as the dark shape in the water floated closer. She stood alone on the beach that evening, there to watch the sun slide from the sky and dip into the water. Fiji's sunsets were an experience like no other, and she spent nearly every night during their visit on the beach.

The dark shape turned out to be a seal, struggling onto the shore. Only then did Naomi move forward to help; she made it three feet when the seal seemed to shimmer in the fading sunlight. Naomi blinked away the blurriness in her gaze and nearly fell over in shock.

The man on the beach weakly shoved the seal pelt off of his back, leaving him entirely naked. Naomi studied his lean frame, the long, dark hair and bloody scratches along his body.

She must have made some sort of noise, because his head snapped up. The tense line of his shoulders disappeared almost immediately as they held eye contact, staring at each other in awe.

"Ko ni sa rairai totoka," he said lowly, rising carefully to his knees.

"I don't speak Fijian," Naomi said apologetically.

"You are beautiful," the man said again. Naomi blinked at him, feeling her cheeks warm. He stumbled to his feet, long fingers gripping his pelt tightly. He swayed slightly, staring at her with wide, dark eyes.

"You are... naked," Naomi said decisively. "And about to collapse." Carefully, she inched closer. The man just watched her, bemused and admiring. "I can heal those," she offered, motioning towards the deep scratches on his body.  

"I have never seen you before," he said, ignoring the wounds. “And I would certainly remember a face like yours.”  

“Do you want to bleed out? Because if you keep hitting on me, I’ll leave your ass right here to suffer alone,” Naomi demanded. How was she supposed to respond to his awed statements? No one had ever looked at her this way- no one had ever looked at her like she was more beautiful, more extraordinary than the explosion of color across the sky as the sun sank into the water.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I did not intend to make you uncomfortable.”

Naomi paused for a moment, slightly surprised by the sincerity of the apology. Lord knew she’d dealt with her fair share of indignant men unable to accept the word “no.” Texas was a special kind of hell, especially for a young, black transgender woman.

“It’s okay,” she finally decided. “Would you like for me to heal your wounds?”

“Please,” he grimaced. “There are no actual seals in these waters, but a shark decided to try for a bite anyway.” Naomi bit back a grin at his disgruntled expression. He looked around the empty beach with a considering frown, then back at her still wary eyes. “Would you feel more comfortable elsewhere? Oh! Or-” he offered the pelt in his hands- “leverage!”  

Baffled, stunned, Naomi could only stare at the soft, silky grey pelt hanging between them. “Are you insane?” She asked once she found her voice again. “You can’t just hand that over to a stranger! I could steal your soul with this thing!”  

“Probably not my soul,” he shrugged. “But you could certainly do some damage.”

“You’re delusional,” Naomi said flatly, charmed despite herself. She waved the pelt away, careful not to touch it. She'd heard the stories, knew the lore. God knew she didn't want to accidentally proposition the selkie.  

“That’s possible,” he said cheerfully. “I’m going to sit down now.” Alarmed, Naomi tried to help him to the sand. The pelt landed on his lap and he peered up at her with a friendly smile, as if to say _‘Look, totally harmless!’_ “I would very much like to know your name.”

“The blood loss is going to your head,” Naomi sighed. She eyed him as she tugged the pen out of her pocket and got to work, sketching the sweeping, deliberate lines of a healing rune onto his arm.

He watched her work with interest but remained perfectly still. “It’s Naomi,” she finally said. The selkie brightened.

“Naomi,” he repeated admiringly. “My name is Alec. It’s very nice to meet you.”

Naomi looked into his hopeful eyes and smiled as her spark wound around them both in tangled gold threads. Alec watched in wonder as Naomi’s hawk tattoo soared down her arm. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Alec.”

~*~

Naomi watched her husband die twice.

The first time, she shook her head to dispel the horrifying vision and had a panic attack so severe that Alec found her passed out on the floor fifteen minutes later. He didn’t ask questions, just held her until she could breathe again. Naomi clung to him tightly that night and the following weeks. But she knew.

Naomi could never prevent the visions. But she learned that what happened afterwards was entirely up to her.

The visions only ever happened occasionally, drifting through her consciousness like an absent-minded daydream that Naomi sometimes didn’t recognize until the vision played out in real life hours, days, or weeks later. She’d foreseen her father’s heart attack in Beirut, her mother’s boat sinking in Port Said. At first, Naomi chalked it up to bad dreams- but she bought extra life jackets to store on the boat, and took first aid classes so she’d know what to do for her dad.

Her parents lived. She’d thought Alec would, too. But the visions before only showed her the _events_ , not her parents. This vision… in this vision Alec’s pelt went up in smoke, and the rest of him followed.

In the end, she wasn’t fast enough. Obadiah Stane heard rumors of a spark and a water shifter on the west coast and sent his hunters after them.

Naomi felt a horrific twist low in her stomach that horrible afternoon when her wards broke, nearly a mile upriver from their home visiting the naiads. Alec remained closer to the mouth of the river so they’d approach Naomi, patiently accepting his wife’s requests to stay close to home even though she couldn’t speak the words, couldn’t bear to stammer out an explanation.

Naomi ran as she’d never run before, sprinting for all her worth along the riverbank. The naiads shot through the water ahead of her, answering her gasping pleas to “please go, please, _help him_!”

She heard the screams, smelled the smoke rising through the air, felt the loss like the twist of a knife in her own chest when Alec’s heart stopped beating. Naomi stumbled with the excruciating pain of it, falling to the ground. A scream ripped out of her chest, echoed downriver by a hunter. She staggered back to her feet, fury and fear the only things keeping her feet moving.

The naiads- her friends, _terrified_ of men by their nature- dragged hunter after hunter into the water. Their vicious fangs were bared and they screamed their fury with Naomi, ripping into the hunters and staining the water red.

The remaining hunters fired their guns at the water nymphs, shouting in alarm. Naomi broke through the tree line, magic rising off of her like steam through the air. A distant part of her felt the earth tremble with her rage, the air crackle like a live wire, the water thrash and roar against the coast.

Men died where they stood, their veins flooded with power that burned them alive from the inside out. They died screaming. Naomi didn’t stop until the last one dropped, his heart bursting apart from the shock and pain.

The air was still.

Naomi was not. She trembled like a leaf where she stood, unable to turn her eyes to the crumpled form on the riverbank. A sob choked her, sent her to her knees. “Please no,” she gasped, tears running down her face. “Please.”

A naiad trilled from the still-red water, reaching for her. “I can’t,” Naomi cried. “He’s gone- they killed-” she broke off, pressing a hand to her mouth as she gasped for air. “I wasn’t _there-_ ” She choked on the next breath, felt the bile rise. Naomi turned her head and vomited into the grass.

She staggered to her feet a long moment later and took one horrible step after another. Inch by inch, she made it to Alec’s side. Naomi collapsed at his side, touched a hand to the charred pelt clutched in his hand, like he’d reached for it as it burned. Naomi curled up on the ground beside him and wished for death to escape the yawning emptiness inside of her.

Hours later, she stirred. The naiads stopped their anxious circles and watched as Naomi dragged her husband to the water’s edge. Clawed, scaled fingers wrapped around her arms and Naomi sobbed into their hold. “Please,” she rasped, reaching for Alec. “He has to- he wanted to be buried at sea. In the water.” Back into the ocean he’d loved so dearly. His soul laid to rest where it belonged, soaring through the depths of the sea.

The naiads helped her pull Alec into the water, laying the remains of his pelt over his face. Naomi stood in the waist-deep water and watched the nymphs gently guide Alec’s body through the river mouth and out to sea.

A gentle, haunting melody wove through the fading light. The naiads sang their blessing to Alec’s soul, holding vigil with the grieving spark. Naomi didn’t notice when the sun left the sky, or when the air grew cold and the water with it. She shivered violently in the flowing waters, watching the spot her husband’s body had disappeared.

One of the naiads nudged her gently, pushing her towards the shore. Naomi obeyed, feeling like an empty shell. She climbed onto the bank and stumbled into the dark woods, shell-shocked. Her spark swelled underneath her skin, Naomi’s subconscious trying to warm her body up with the magic.

Naomi dropped to her knees and doubled over. Gone, _Alec was_ _gone-_  

“Take it,” Naomi sobbed. She pressed her hands to the ground, digging her fingers into the soft dirt. “Just take it, I don’t _want_ _it_ anymore.”

She felt the nemeton reach for her, trying to soothe and assuage. _“Please!”_ Naomi screamed, curling her fingers into the ground. “I don’t want it, please, you have to-” she cut off with a gasp when the nemeton answered her plea, winding its own magic around her and constricting her lungs. Magic poured out of her, flowing into the land like a river of gold.

Naomi watched it seep into the ground, felt like her soul was being sucked out of her body. Naomi didn’t know she had anything left after Alec- She wavered, closed her eyes against the pain.  

The hawk on her skin spread its wings across her back, melding with her tattoo, and did not move again.

~*~

Her spark was poured into the land, but Naomi still saw a young girl, dark haired and brimming with a familiar gold magic, trekking through the Fae realm. She saw the same girl overwhelmed by red-eyed werewolves, fighting desperately to stay alive.

With nothing else to offer, Naomi reached out to Satomi. They still had years to go before these events occurred, before the young spark was entrenched in danger like so many before her.

So Naomi created a rune to see through glamor, worked night after night until she perfected it. Satomi accepted it without question, along with Naomi’s brief note. _‘For the ones with light still in their souls. You’ll know when it’s time_.’  

Naomi’s parents knew people in nearly every country in the world, many of them supernaturals. It was easy enough to put out the request for ancient texts on werewolves, on sparks and packs and the gifts the land would give to those it loved. It was even easier to pass the right book along to Satomi again. This note was far more bleak. _‘When war comes and she has no other options._ ’

She didn’t think Satomi would send two baby sparks to her, staring pitifully at Naomi like a couple of half-drowned kittens on her doorstep. She never expected to love them, either. Didn’t want to, not after Alec.

After Alec died, Naomi thought she had nothing more to give. Now she wondered if that was ever true, or if the grief and the pain had repressed her heart and mind. It was time for her to stop hiding- from the world, from her life. From herself, she thought, and reached confidently for the nemeton. She owed Alec that much. What's more, she owed _herself_ that much.

~*~

The last vision came a year after Darcy and Stiles left her house. Naomi didn’t know what the vision meant, who it was meant to warn- only that it made fear seize her heart and chill her blood.

Naomi didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know what fate had in store for them all.

In the meantime, though, she would prepare for the worst.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Did I cry like a baby writing this? Yes. Yes I did. (Somehow I got super attached to Alec in my head and then wrote his death, which was Upsetting.)


End file.
